1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of telecommunications. More particularly, the present invention relates to automatically creating a log of outgoing telephone calls from a subscriber's telephone and storing outgoing call log data in a database, which is accessible by the subscriber over a data network for displaying the outgoing call log data and generating associated reports.
2. Acronyms
The written description provided herein contains acronyms which refer to various telecommunications services, components and techniques, as well as features relating to the present invention. Although some of these acronyms are known, use of these acronyms is not strictly standardized in the art. For purposes of the written description herein, the acronyms are defined as follows:                Advanced Intelligent Network (AIN)        Graphical User Interface (GUI)        Generic Data Interface (GDI)        HyperText Mark-Up Language (HTML)        HyperText Transfer Language Protocol (HTTP)        Java Database Conductivity (JDBC)        Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP)        Line Information Database (LIDB)        Off-Hook Delay (OHD)        Outgoing Call Log (OCL)        Open Database Connectivity (ODBC)        Personal Call Manager/Personal Communications Manager (PCM)        Personal Identification Number (PIN)        Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN)        Service Control Point (SCP)        Service Switching Point (SSP)        Signaling System 7 (SS7)        Signaling Transfer Point (STP)        Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP)        
3. Background Information
Presently, a number of advanced intelligent network (AIN) based telecommunications services enable dynamic interaction between the customers and their respective service accounts. Servers, databases, intelligent peripherals and other external data network elements interface with the public switched telephone network (PSTN) to process and store information created during routine handling of telephone calls. For example, names may be associated with incoming calling party numbers using an external directory database while the PSTN is processing the call. The name, telephone number and other call specific information may then be stored in an external database for access by the customer.
However, no service makes information related to outgoing telephone calls placed from a customer's telephone readily accessible to the customer for extensive processing and practical use. Although some present applications store outgoing telephone call data, the data is not used for detailed historical call tracking, report generation and other substantive processing. For example, in DEFAZIO et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,940,484, outgoing call data automatically populates a telecommunications service related database. The database is subsequently used to increase the efficiency of associating names with incoming calls to the customer's telephone number, relying on the general theory that the parties called by the customer are the parties most likely to call the customer. The name database of DEFAZIO et al. is kept current by eliminating, for example, telephone numbers that have been changed with respect to a particular party or have not been called for an extended period of time.
DEFAZIO et al. does not teach, however, processing the outgoing call data to maintain a detailed historical record of outgoing calls or to enable generation of outgoing call reports. Furthermore, the data stored for each call is too general to enable any effective analysis. For example, DEFAZIO et al. simply retains the number of total calls to (and from) a particular telephone number and the date of the most recent call.
The present invention overcomes the problems associated with the prior art, as described below.